NYU Tandon Team Developing Mobile 3D Printers that Work as a Team

A multidisciplinary team from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering has received a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop autonomous, mobile construction 3D printers.

Down the line, the researchers hope that their work will untether 3D printers, so to speak, and enable them to build structures with more mobility.When one thinks of the movement of a 3D printer, what comes to mind is extruder nozzles moving across the horizontal plane. On the more flexible side, one can also think of robotic arms equipped with print heads, which can move in a myriad of ways. Still, in both cases, the 3D printing process is still bound by an immobile box or gantry.

Within the industry, this hasn’t presented a significant challenge, but a team from NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering believe that exciting and new applications could be opened up for additive technologies if they were given more mobility.The concept presented by the team consists of autonomous systems for 3D printers on robotic arms that are themselves attached to mobile, roving platforms.